CEO of cloud solutions firm Centiq, Glyn Heath, has told Computing that any organisation deploying a mission-critical ERP (enterprise resource planning) system in the cloud today is either "very brave or blind".

Heath's view is rooted in his suspicion of an industry that has grown rapidly around cloud solutions over the past couple of years. He said the "inevitable hype" generated by vendors and their unrealistic promises have created "a really good recipe for a lot of confusion", which has led to some companies deploying unsuitable systems into the cloud.

He said companies should plan carefully before "taking the plunge", and advised CIOs to "have some foundations in place if you hope to execute it successfully".

Heath cited a Centiq client that had to stall a major project for three months because it was failing to live up to the expectations of a finance department that had "read about cloud in the Sunday papers". It turned out that the company, which cannot be named, was attempting to place a SAP ERP system into a public cloud.

"We explained that you would never consider putting SAP in a public cloud," Heath told Computing.

"Notwithstanding the security issues around data, the technical limitations around bandwidth and availability – and reliability – of systems are enough to preclude that being a sensible option."

As well as marketing hype, Heath also blamed a lack of industry standards for allowing widespread misunderstanding of the "real world executability" of the cloud to persist.

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